They don't really have a lot of overlap in their skillsets, so it's hard to really say.

One place they overlap is robotics.

On the one hand, Doom's got a swarm of Doombots, compared to Luthor's handful of androids.

On the other hand, Doombots are a patch for inconsistent characterization. So, by definition, their programming is lacking. Whereas the Luthorbots we've seen, or Loisbot, are indistinguishable from the real ones until the robot-bits are visible (aside from Loisbot hanging around with Luthor, of course).

I'd say Doom, if only for the fact that he actually won once. Beat every last hero (well, mind controlled all of them at once), had the world done and conquered, ruled it for a stretch.
Then he got really bored and basically let go of his throne.

Of course he also got dusted by Squirrel Girl, so I suppose it evens out...

Luthor could take a pen, a pad of paper and a light bulb and make an explosive device with it in seconds (actually he chose not to--he was in prison at the time and realized that if he did, they wouldn't give him a pen and paper the next time he got caught-which in and of itself is pretty clever) . Doom couldn't do something like that--it's just not how he thinks. Luthor can casually cobble together time-machines and FTL machines out of stuff found in an average suburban trash-can. Doom couldn't.

But...Luthor's never set his sights higher than "Take out that damned alien".** Doom's got a much further reaching vision, he's not as narrowly obsessive AND he has magic (plus an army of Doombots that can go toe-to-toe with The Thing. They'll lose, mind you, but they can go toe-to-toe) and stuff that drains The Power Cosmic, he's played with Cosmic Cubes.....

If they fought, it'd be a good fight...but Doom would win: Luthor creates a device out of his shoelaces that disables Doom's armor, but Doom summons up a million demons from hell..and an army of Mindless Ones just in case..to eat Luthor. My money's on Doom.

But for pure "smarts"? My money's on Luthor. (He's also not as psycho as Doom and that plays into the smarts)

*There are multiple versions of Luthor (Doom too, but less so). With Luthor, let's assume the smartest one--the super-scientist from the 60's through mid 70's. For Doom, let's use one towards Mark Waid's end of the spectrum (Has abbatoirs in his basement, is willing to flense his one true love to make magical leather armor of her skin, etc) than Byrne's Doom (a cuddly, caring, compassionate guy who...well, has some obession issues with Reed)

**Although sometimes it's more nuanced than that. The Elliot S! Maggin version has an interesting variant on that: He thinks that Superman playing "Daddy" to the world is undermining humanity and by keeping Supes focused on Luthor, Supes doesn't have time to, say, develop a cure for cancer that WE should develop on our own or something.

Luthor could take a pen, a pad of paper and a light bulb and make an explosive device with it in seconds (actually he chose not to--he was in prison at the time and realized that if he did, they wouldn't give him a pen and paper the next time he got caught-which in and of itself is pretty clever).

For bonus points, we never get to see his non-pen-and-paper jailbreak plan in that story -- because Superman shows up with a Presidential pardon to ask for Lex's help -- but he's back in prison at the end of it, and the follow-up story has Lex escaping his cell by using his own body as a painful teleportation device.

(That story also neatly covers why Lex never bothered to deduce Superman's secret identity: as with the explosives, it's not that he can't figure it out; it's that -- while hiding out behind a paste-on mustache with matching wig, using fake credentials to bolster his latest alias -- Lex got halfway through narrowing down a short list of suspects before concluding that Superman is likewise smart enough to start over in no time flat, choosing a new name for fake IDs that fit a new hair-and-makeup disguise.)

Quote:

Luthor can casually cobble together time-machines and FTL machines out of stuff found in an average suburban trash-can.

When the bars at his window failed to keep out a slanted ray of sunlight, Lex built a solar-powered time machine using a needle and thread plus some aspirin; the minimally harder part was first learning the right ancient language, so that he could fast-talk a startled Hercules into busting 'em both out of the joint.

Is my recollection of Silver Age Luthor correct: he was driven to seek vengeance on Superman because he blamed Superboy for his hair loss? He could build robots, time machines, rocket ships, and androids, yet couldn't make his hair grow back?

Is my recollection of Silver Age Luthor correct: he was driven to seek vengeance on Superman because he blamed Superboy for his hair loss?

That was part of it. Luthor had created a synthetic life-form in his lab; a fire broke out; Superboy swooped in to extinguish the flames with a powerful gust of breath, which smashed a bunch chemicals into each other; the fumes killed the creature and made all of Luthor's hair fall out. So every time he looks in the mirror, Lex is reminded that either (a) Kal-El is an irresponsible musclehead who needs to be supervised, or (b) Kal-El is a smiling dick with a vendetta against Lex.

Well, Ultimate Reed had discovered the Negative Zone in his early teens, travelled to it and back a little bit later on in his teens, created a Cosmic Cube right after that, and seemed to be heading towards being as smart as the regular universe Reed before he was 20. If they would've followed it into adulthood, he would've easily been smarter than anyone in both universes. But they decided to screw it up as usual by introducing all the regular FF stuff.

Yeah, but Luthor is one of the smartest men in the DC universe, and the geniuses there are generally more outsized than Marvel.

I disagree. The upper limits of brute strength and raw speed are higher in DC, but otherwise the universes' are on a par with one another. Hell, for magnetic powers and psychic abilities, Marvel takes the crown easily.

And I'd put Doom and/or Richards against the best DC has to offer.

Though of course the real answer is whoever the writers want to win that afternoon.

Latvaria.
And my money would be on Luthor. Doom is smart, but he augments his normal smarts with magic. Luthor is just a straight up evil genius.

I don't believe Doom augments his normal smarts with magic; I think he's smart enough to master both the mystic arts and the sciences, which is a different thing.

But even if that's true, so what? Tony Stark augments his normal physical strength with armor, and Michael Holt does not. That doesn't invalidate Iron Man's unquestionable ability to take Mr. Terrific in an arm-wrestling contest.

Is my recollection of Silver Age Luthor correct: he was driven to seek vengeance on Superman because he blamed Superboy for his hair loss? He could build robots, time machines, rocket ships, and androids, yet couldn't make his hair grow back?

Fanwank:

I don't think he cared that he was bald for its own sake. He was angry because, in his own mind, Superboy made him go bald -- that is, betrayed him -- to show him up; and to make it worse, he was working on a potion to make Kal immune to Kryptonite poisoning at the time.

Luthor's scope is just so small compared with Doom's. It was a big deal when Luthor was elected President, for instance, while Doom has been ruling Latveria with a literal iron fist for decades. Luthor went nuts just having possessed an orange power ring for a while; Doom eats that kind of power for breakfast.

I disagree that the measure of intelligence is higher in the DCU than in the Marvel U. Currently I'd argue the opposite. Reed and Valeria Richards in FF are a lot smarter than anybody in the DCU I can think of right now.

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